By Felix Khanoba
The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) says it is considering granting amnesty to companies and other registered entities that have not done their annual return filling for over a period time.
Registrar General of CAC, Garba Abubakar, who made this known in a chat with newsmen on Abuja, called on companies to update their information on the Commission’s portal as required by law to avoid necessary sanction.
He, however, said the CAC will from 1 April 2021, disallow accredited customers that fail to revalidate their accounts.
“For other registered entities, we encourage them to update their information, we are considering an amnesty for certain number of years on annual return filings, but we have not worked out the details,” he said.
Speaking on the purported threat by workers of the Commission to embark on strike on Tuesday following disagreement with the management, the CAC boss said the union that issued the strike is no longer in existence, hence, cannot carry out such action.
“The union you are talking about, AUPCTRE, is no longer recognised as a senior staff union in CAC because of the decision of the National Industrial Court, that declared AUPCTRE a junior staff union.
“A copy of the judgment has been made available to us and there is no stay of execution on the judgement. To that effect AUPCTRE stopped existing in CAC. It has been dissolved.
“The leadership of the union has been dissolved, staff of the Commission have been advised to join any organised union of senior staff of their choice. All union dues deductions from staff salaries have been stopped.
“Junior staff have been advised to organise themselves into AUPCTRE or other union of their choice.”
While saying two promotion examinations were conducted within the last two years that saw to the promotion of hundreds of staff and over N330 million salary differencial, Abubakar said his administration has continued to accord priorities to the welfare of workers in the organisation.
He said the management successfully cleared all its 2019 pension arrears while pension deductions were duly remmited to relevant bodies in 2020.
He, however, warned that the CAC managemeny will not tolerate disruption of the Commission activities by any group of person under the guise of strike.
“I will come here tomorrow and see whether anybody is going to lock this place because majority of the staff are not ready to go on strike. Majority of the staff are permitted to come to work.
“We will not cordone brigandage, union is not a licence for anybody to disrupt government services. CAC is a critical national institution,” he said.
Speaking further, the CAC boss said the organisation has launched a new Companies Registration Portal (CRP), which every registration activities can be carried out as well as printing of certificates.
He said with the new sophisticated CRP, the use of courrier services in dispatching documents from and to the Commission will soon come to an end.
Recall CAC workers, under the aegis of the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE), had on 20 December 2020, issued said 21 days ultimatum to CAC Registrar General to address its grievances or risk industrial action.
The letter titled Notice of a 21-day ultimatum and signed by Musa Ukpo, National acting General Secretary of AUPCTRE, accused the CAC management of injustice, anti-workers’ posture, pettiness, victimisation, among others.
